Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of investigations that have been launched into persons suspected of claiming jobseeker's allowance or jobseeker's benefit under false pretences in the most recent twelve months for which figures are available. [53885/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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My Department has a target of reviewing 985,000 individual welfare claims and achieving €645 million in control savings for 2012. Up to the end of October 2012, almost €560 million in estimated control savings has been reported and over 1 million reviews have been carried out across all schemes.

The table below gives a breakdown of the control savings and reviews recorded on the Jobseekers schemes up to end of October 2012 and also the reviews and savings achieved for 2011.

Control savings result from a control activity where a claim is reduced or terminated as a result of unreported customer error or fraud. Control savings estimate the total future savings to the Department of a revocation or reduction resulting from a control review of a payment. Had the payment not been stopped or reduced, the Department would have incurred this additional expenditure for a future period.

Information about control activity is not recorded in the manner requested by the Deputy. However, the most reliable measure of excess payments by the Department through fraudulent claiming is by way of overpayments raised. In 2011 there were 63,310 overpayments raised amounting to €92.4m across all schemes. Of these, €34.9m involving 20,585 cases related to fraud. In respect of the Jobseekers schemes, €15.2m was the value of fraud overpayments raised in 2011 in respect of 16,464 cases.